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Friday night in the Big City. I continued on my quest to see performers I've always loved, preferably in small venues, while I can still get around and up sets of stairs (or, as last summer, across country fields minus my keys). Already, Eleanor is pretty much at a point where she can't get to, and stay at, any of these events for their duration due to chronic pains- so I'm filling my bucket while I can.
Problem with bucket lists, though, is you never quite fill them. I have the Bucket of Sisyphus. It's a fairly typical scenario: one of the venues I've been to before, or Facebook, or Ticketmonster, announces an on-sale of some show I'd really like to see, usually several months off. More often than not, I pass when I first see it, not knowing what my work or life schedule will be at that point, and by the time I remember it (more likely, one of the above prompts remind me of it), it turns out to be sold out.
And So It Goes, or rather how it went, with the other night's show featuring Nick Lowe. A mainstay of British music from the late 70s on, co-maker of Rockpile, former spouse of Johnny Cash's stepdaughter Carlene Carter, and generally iconic dude. I heard him on World Cafe months ago, a rerun of this interview from 2018, with clips of him playing with his new backup band, Los Straitjackets. They're not strictly a Mexican band- although they all wear masks made famous on Mexican wrestling shows- but they have serious indie cred and rockabilly roots out of Nashville and I hoped to catch both them and Nick on their stop here the other night.
And Facebook said....
Secondary sites were no help, but then, two days before the show, some additional seats popped up, and I planted my virtual butt into one of them:)
We have some long and happy history with the Tralf. Originally the Tralfamadore Cafe and based way up Main Street from downtown, it was relocated as part of 1980s "urban renewal" to a site next to Shea's, the main performing arts venue in the Theatre District. The newspaper's archivist of such things traced the history through the late 80s here. After that change to a Jazz Institute, it briefly fell under (or into) skeevy management in "Marquee" days, but finally got in the hands of an experienced musician and owner who made it what it simply is today: The Tralf.
Through all that, I, and later both of us, had been regulars by that third incarnation. In law school, I saw one of my favorite (and long-gone) Ithaca bands there on perhaps their only tour outside the Finger Lakes, and it also hosted Bar Revue, the irreverent attempt at humor and music by young lawyers (picture "I-O-L-A" done to the Village People song). I started bringing Eleanor there for eclectic acts including Steps Ahead, the Nylons, and the one she remembers- Bruce Cockburn, ruined because the audience just wouldn't shaddap during his show.
As downtown theater grew along with downtown in general in recent years, the club has kept its niche- one of the mid-size places where you won't get The Who but plenty of Who's You've Heard Of. I missed many there I wish I'd seen, including Warren Zevon who was there more than once, and, back in law school days, this guy:
and any number of other legends more recently:
There are others now fitting the bill for this size of performance: Ani DiFranco lovingly renovated the former downtown Methodist church building into Babeville (more about that to come), and the Town Ballroom and sometimes the Statler bring in acts of this stature. But you can't go wrong going up those stairs (elevators in previous incarnations, at least possibly remembered) to see, as I would tonight, Nick and his band.
----
I'd also meet more people, one planned, one not planned, and two, really, not at all:
Years ago after joining Facebook, I became friends with a local semi-legend named Peterjoe Certo. Eleanor knew his beer distributor company from its visits to her store, but I met him through an East Meadow lifelong friend who'd met him back in misbegotten 80s times. We finally caught up at his table not too far from mine, and while my camera takes shit pictures and I hate selfies, he did get this much better than any of my shots of the band:
I also got to meet their opening act, who I'd not heard of (nor known there was an opening act):
Her name is Esther Rose, a Michigander transplanted to New Orleans and who did a perfectly lovely and well-timed opening set. I met her at the merch table after and brought home her most recent CD.
Then there was the night's Beth and Bill, named for the couple I met at the last club show I attended who became stand-ins of sorts for the days when we could go to venues like this together:
These two, I didn't even get names. I didn't need them. They were enjoying the music and were plainly in love. I complimented both on their jewelry, told them about the connection to the last show, and she told me it was her birthday present to her beloved, who's a big fan of Marshall Crenshaw, who has also toured with Los Straitjackets and who's done Nick Lowe music with them.
Yeah, they did Cruel to Be Kind for us, too:
And did most of his famed pieces, ending with a final encore of perhaps his most beloved piece recorded by many others (Elvis Costello, Lucy Kaplansky, Steve Earle and many others), "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding."
Truer than ever.
Quite the night. I headed out into a full-on celebration outside, for this night was Curtain Up!, the premiere night of many of the professional and experimental theatrical performances in town. Shea's was doing Mean Girls, and Tina Fey was spotted about town earlier in the day. I passed clowns on bikes juggling hula hoops (yes, I had wine, but not THAT much;), and headed home.
----
One friend I did not get to meet there was too sick to attend. I offered to join him for the show next month at Babeville- Lake Street Dive, in a much more intimate setting than where I saw them with thousands of others last summer. I also grabbed one Babeville ticket for December for Hot Tuna- somewhat to see those two (I've never seen Jack, and only saw Jorma once back in college in his unfortunate punk phase in a band called Vital Parts), but even more for their opening act, who I saw open for Lucy a few winters back. And to complete the Sisyphus metaphor, on the morning of the Nick Lowe show, Babeville put tickets on sale, for six months from now, for an evening with Graham Nash, who I've also never seen.
It's not sold out. Yet.
Problem with bucket lists, though, is you never quite fill them. I have the Bucket of Sisyphus. It's a fairly typical scenario: one of the venues I've been to before, or Facebook, or Ticketmonster, announces an on-sale of some show I'd really like to see, usually several months off. More often than not, I pass when I first see it, not knowing what my work or life schedule will be at that point, and by the time I remember it (more likely, one of the above prompts remind me of it), it turns out to be sold out.
And So It Goes, or rather how it went, with the other night's show featuring Nick Lowe. A mainstay of British music from the late 70s on, co-maker of Rockpile, former spouse of Johnny Cash's stepdaughter Carlene Carter, and generally iconic dude. I heard him on World Cafe months ago, a rerun of this interview from 2018, with clips of him playing with his new backup band, Los Straitjackets. They're not strictly a Mexican band- although they all wear masks made famous on Mexican wrestling shows- but they have serious indie cred and rockabilly roots out of Nashville and I hoped to catch both them and Nick on their stop here the other night.
And Facebook said....
Secondary sites were no help, but then, two days before the show, some additional seats popped up, and I planted my virtual butt into one of them:)
We have some long and happy history with the Tralf. Originally the Tralfamadore Cafe and based way up Main Street from downtown, it was relocated as part of 1980s "urban renewal" to a site next to Shea's, the main performing arts venue in the Theatre District. The newspaper's archivist of such things traced the history through the late 80s here. After that change to a Jazz Institute, it briefly fell under (or into) skeevy management in "Marquee" days, but finally got in the hands of an experienced musician and owner who made it what it simply is today: The Tralf.
Through all that, I, and later both of us, had been regulars by that third incarnation. In law school, I saw one of my favorite (and long-gone) Ithaca bands there on perhaps their only tour outside the Finger Lakes, and it also hosted Bar Revue, the irreverent attempt at humor and music by young lawyers (picture "I-O-L-A" done to the Village People song). I started bringing Eleanor there for eclectic acts including Steps Ahead, the Nylons, and the one she remembers- Bruce Cockburn, ruined because the audience just wouldn't shaddap during his show.
As downtown theater grew along with downtown in general in recent years, the club has kept its niche- one of the mid-size places where you won't get The Who but plenty of Who's You've Heard Of. I missed many there I wish I'd seen, including Warren Zevon who was there more than once, and, back in law school days, this guy:
and any number of other legends more recently:
There are others now fitting the bill for this size of performance: Ani DiFranco lovingly renovated the former downtown Methodist church building into Babeville (more about that to come), and the Town Ballroom and sometimes the Statler bring in acts of this stature. But you can't go wrong going up those stairs (elevators in previous incarnations, at least possibly remembered) to see, as I would tonight, Nick and his band.
----
I'd also meet more people, one planned, one not planned, and two, really, not at all:
Years ago after joining Facebook, I became friends with a local semi-legend named Peterjoe Certo. Eleanor knew his beer distributor company from its visits to her store, but I met him through an East Meadow lifelong friend who'd met him back in misbegotten 80s times. We finally caught up at his table not too far from mine, and while my camera takes shit pictures and I hate selfies, he did get this much better than any of my shots of the band:
I also got to meet their opening act, who I'd not heard of (nor known there was an opening act):
Her name is Esther Rose, a Michigander transplanted to New Orleans and who did a perfectly lovely and well-timed opening set. I met her at the merch table after and brought home her most recent CD.
Then there was the night's Beth and Bill, named for the couple I met at the last club show I attended who became stand-ins of sorts for the days when we could go to venues like this together:
These two, I didn't even get names. I didn't need them. They were enjoying the music and were plainly in love. I complimented both on their jewelry, told them about the connection to the last show, and she told me it was her birthday present to her beloved, who's a big fan of Marshall Crenshaw, who has also toured with Los Straitjackets and who's done Nick Lowe music with them.
Yeah, they did Cruel to Be Kind for us, too:
And did most of his famed pieces, ending with a final encore of perhaps his most beloved piece recorded by many others (Elvis Costello, Lucy Kaplansky, Steve Earle and many others), "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding."
Truer than ever.
Quite the night. I headed out into a full-on celebration outside, for this night was Curtain Up!, the premiere night of many of the professional and experimental theatrical performances in town. Shea's was doing Mean Girls, and Tina Fey was spotted about town earlier in the day. I passed clowns on bikes juggling hula hoops (yes, I had wine, but not THAT much;), and headed home.
----
One friend I did not get to meet there was too sick to attend. I offered to join him for the show next month at Babeville- Lake Street Dive, in a much more intimate setting than where I saw them with thousands of others last summer. I also grabbed one Babeville ticket for December for Hot Tuna- somewhat to see those two (I've never seen Jack, and only saw Jorma once back in college in his unfortunate punk phase in a band called Vital Parts), but even more for their opening act, who I saw open for Lucy a few winters back. And to complete the Sisyphus metaphor, on the morning of the Nick Lowe show, Babeville put tickets on sale, for six months from now, for an evening with Graham Nash, who I've also never seen.
It's not sold out. Yet.